St. Augustine in IR Part II

2015.01.10

Day Two Hundred and Nine. Went back down to St. Augustine to do some more infrared work. The shooting technique was pretty standard for me at this point. The magic here is in the editing. I incorporated Photoshop layering and a new highlighting technique for Lightroom I learned on YouTube. It's kind of the lazy man's dodging and burning, but it's surprisingly effective. You use the radial filter to highlight areas. Instead of focusing on micro detail, it focuses on the broad tonal range across an entire image. This is especially important in black and white, where if large swaths of an image fall inside the same tonal range, then the image appears flat. By highlighting certain areas, you can break up the monotony. I was worried it would look overly obvious, since you're limited to ovals, but as long as you don't over do it (i.e. stay under 1 stop of adjustment), you can add some much needed visual interest without making gaudy bright spots :)